Bayeux

I scampered out of work on Friday at exactly 5:30 to make sure that I could make it to Gare St. Lazare on time to make it on to our 6:48 train to Bayeux. Ok, so to back up just a little bit, Matt and I were heading out for Bayeux which is a small town in France, in Nomandy, which is only about 12 miles from the Beaches of Normandy, and is home to the oh so famous Bayeux tapestry which tells the tell of the battle of Hastings in 1066 and the tapestry dates from somewhere around 1070, so it is almost a thousdand years old. We decided that seeing these things definitely warranted and overnight trip to Normandy, and it is always nice to venture out into the French countryside away from the city for just a night.

So we got to the station, and came a little too close for comfort for me… to missing our train. This was because we had to wait in a long line to get our tickets which we had already paid for… but since we have American credit cards and they won’t work in the do it yourself machines, we had to wait. But luckily we made it in time and found ourselves on trains with little compartments… that made me really think that we were heading to Hogwarts, but alas, after two hours on the train, we arrived in Bayeux, not at Wizarding School. We stayed at a bed and breakfast about five minutes from the train station, where we were greeted by a very friendly older woman who runs the bed and breakfast and her adorable little dog named Monsieur Sushi! After some very serious puppy loving and getting settled in, Matt and I went and found a very Normand restaurant where we had dinner and dessert. The thing about Friday nights in France is the same thing that you find in the US. You are always so tired on Friday nights after a long week of school or internship or what have you, so we went back to the hotel, and literally dropped into our beds until breakfast the next morning which was served at 9am.

In the morning, the sky was cloudy and threatening to rain, but our plan for the day was to go and see the Tapestry and the museum along with the cathedral in the morning and then rent some bikes and venture out to the beaches for the afternoon. This was our plan and we were hoping it would all work out. Matt’s guide book said that the beaches can be hard to get to if you don’t have a car, or rather expensive to get to by bus on a guided tour. We did not have a car and we did not want to pay 50 euro to go on an afternoon long tour, so we thought that renting bikes would be an excellent way to prove Matt’s guidebook wrong, and show that if you have a little bit of gumption you can make it to the beaches no sweat. Plus we have some friends who rode their bikes from Bayeux to the beaches without any problems, so we were sure that if they could do it, so could we.

We had a lovely breakfast with Madame Miriam who ran the bread and breakfast, in the breakfast room which was in her home, which is also home to her four cats to which I am rather allergic… but luckily we were in and out quick enough that after only about eight or nine sneezes I was ok, and ready to go! We talked with her about some interesting things (it is funny how the two things they always tell you not to talk about: Religion and Politics always seem to come up. It is also interesting to me how many people have asked us “Where did you learn to speak French so well?” and we answer “in school’’ The always seem to think that this is amazing and rather impossible, which I think shows how good our education has been both in high school and at DPU. But we set off around ten to find the tapestry.

It was only down the street, and since it is not quite yet tourist season we were some of the only people there to see the tapestry. The pictures you see here were taken illegally, but at least I didn’t know it was illegal… I didn’t see the sign until the way out and no one stopped me… so now I have a ton of pics of the Bayeux tapestry for you and for myself to enjoy. The battle that the tapestry depicts took place in 1066 when William the Bastard (who became William the conqueror thanks to this battle) came over from Normandy and defeated the Saxons to take his rightful place on the throne of England (since the late King Edward had willed it to him.) The tapestry is absolutely fascinating, with all kinds of scenes of battles, but of everyday life in the middle ages which is very fascinating. It also captures details that are often ignored, like the fact that the battle created many women and children refugees, and that the British were not super thrilled to have a new Normand king when all was said and done. It was really outstanding to see, and the fact that it is so old and so well preserved is amazing. It regained a lot of popularity when Napoleon brought out to Paris in 1804 to try to rally support for his ambition to invade England… but when that failed he sent it back to Bayeux and had it put on display. So all and all the tapestry has had a very interesting history, and will continue to fascinate people for years to come, as long as a ton of tourist don’t come and take pictures of it like I did on accident.

We went from the tapestry museum over to the cathedral was very well lit… which I think is because the majority of the windows are not original… I can’t imagine that it did not suffer some sort of damage during the world wars… but some of the stained glass was still there and it was really neat. From our little visit to the cathedral we went over to the tourism office to find out the best place to rent bikes… only to find out that the bike rental place was closed because the people who own it were on vacation for the weekend. And so our adventure to find a way to get to the Normandy D-day beaches began. We went back to ask Miraim what she thought we should do… and while she was really very helpful, there was no way to get out there on a bus that was going to cost less than 50 euro per person… and she had some bikes that she offered to lend us for the afternoon, but it was getting a bit late (only 1:30, but to ride the 12 miles there and the 12 miles back would have taken at least an hour each way and our return train was leaving for Paris around 6:50, so we really did not have a ton of time to spend… if we had left an hour and half earlier we would have been fine, but that hour and a half really made all the difference. So Miriam offered to take us herself for 25 euro a person… but it was really obvious that that was not what she wanted to do with her afternoon, even if it would have meant an extra 50 euro for her.

So we were left with no bikes, no busses, and a reluctant and stressed seeming driver. Our last option was to succumb to what the guide book said would be inevitable: we needed to find a car. And so we set out with Miriam and her daughter to (mom, I need you to take a deep breath and not freak out right now) rent ourselves a car for the afternoon. I am not insured so drive in France, and I cannot drive a stick shift car, which was all that was available (see mom, no need to freak out I did not drive) but Matt was ok for both, so we went to the Nissan dealership and rented a car for 63 euro for the afternoon… which was only 5 euro more than what we would have paid Miriam. The man behind the counter was a bit shocked to hear that Matt was only 20 and had a license… since most French people with drivers licenses do not get them until they are around 25, but he let us have the car just the same. And in the spirit of true adventure, recently put back into us by reading some of Donald Miller’s books and simply because we wanted to go to the beaches since that was what we came to Bayeux to do, we set off, in a little black rented Nissan, into the French countryside, to traverse the 12 miles between us and the American cemetery and a few other sites that we wanted to see. So tragically, we did not prove the guide book wrong. In fact the guide book was annoyingly right about how we would get to the beaches, but regardless Matt (who is a wonderful driver) got us to the beaches in no time. The only hiccup we had with the car at all in fact was the fact that when we went to leave the cemetery to go to Point d’Hoc, we couldn’t figure out how to get the car to go in reverse, and pushing while in neutral was just a bit much, even though we tried, no joke. (I wish I had a picture of that actually since it was hilarious.) Reverse is apparently different in some cars (perhaps all European cars, I don’t know because I have no point of European car reference here) but after a confused and rather silly and embarrassing phone call to the man at the Nissan dealership later, we found out how to do it (pull up?) and we were on our way once again!

But back to the beaches and the cemetery. This was actually the third time I had visited the beaches and the cemetery, but they never fail to impress. They are eerie and magnificent and haunting all at the same time. They are so calm and peaceful, and now the final resting place for so many Americans who will never again go home. They are a strange sort of memorial in themselves, and now, when you see them, covered in trees, and as a place where seagulls nest and wildflowers grow, it is almost impossible to imagine the beaches that day, on June 6th 1944, when thousands of American, Canadian and British soldiers made the perilous trip across the Channel to take back France from the Nazi’s and begin the year long challenge of liberating Europe and taking Germany back from the hands of Hitler. It is difficult to see the beaches washed in blood of the dead and dying, and the deafening sounds of the fire coming from both sides… and somehow, miraculously, the Allies defeated the Germans, without any advantages on their side. is very hard to imagine the beaches that day, when you stand in the quiet wind and breathe the fresh salt air taking in the scenes all around you. But that is what memorials are supposed to do correct? Remind us of things that we might rather forget, but are better off for having remembered. I don’t know, but it was moving just the same.

We returned the car without a problem (and even learned a little bit about the intricacies of using a French gas station) and said good bye to Miriam and her puppies, and got back on the train to go home to Paris. So overall, the overnight trip to Bayeux was a success, if not an adventure to say the least.

What do you do?

So last night during our class, we were discussing the concept of European citizenship that was created in 1992 with the Treaty of Mastrich which created a government for the European Union, created the Euro (instituted in 2000), and created the idea for many rights Europeans now have because they are European. But to start out our conversation about citizenship our prof asked us if we felt European while we were here in Europe. Of course the immediate response was “No!” In fact we feel much more American in Europe than we ever do in America… so of course her next question was why not? Which was a very different question. She said, outside of language what felt so different about Europe that made us feel so much like we were not Europeans, but very clearly Americans. We answered with several different things, but I suggested that perhaps it was the different mentality of the two places that are so different… and even if you don’t speak it out loud, or even realize it, it is this mentality difference that makes the two places feel so different.

I recount this small anecdote, perhaps to make you think about it… but also because I think it might be this American mentality that I have that is pushing me to ask this question: What am I going to do with experience when it is over? It is still far from over; but as I approach the halfway point, I am already being pushed by some inner drive in me to ask myself what I am going to use this for when it is all over… and I think the American mentality is one that is very centred around action, you are what you do. The first question you ask is “what do you do?” or “what do your parents do?” Whether or not it is a good thing, often times this is how we define ourselves… it has a lot to do with a lot of things, but I can’t help but ask myself, “what am I going to do?”

I have also been reading Donald Miller’s newest book on the bus in the mornings and in the evenings, called A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and he frames the book with the theme of stories. He says life is like a story, and you are your own character, and you are responsible for living a good story, an outstanding story, or just a mediocre one, whichever you choose to live. This has caused me to think about the kind of story I am living, is it a good one? A selfish one? An exciting one? Could I be living a better; more meaningful one? Could my experience here help me to do that? In deciding to do this have I set myself on a path to live a quality and meaningful story? Donald Miller says, “People love to have lived a great story, but few people like the work it takes to make it happen.” Right now I feel up to the challenge… I want to put in the work to make it happen.

So right now I don’t have the answer my question yet about what exactly I am going to do, and how I am going to use this experience to continue to try to live an exciting and meaningful story… so I hope you weren’t expecting an answer… I suppose I’ll just have to get back to you on that one.

Random post, but it these thoughts were just in my head. If you all get tired of the reflective posts then just stick to the ones with pictures… Rome II Thursday and Friday is coming soon!

Roma I

Rome I- better late than never right? and there will be two more still after this one, but not tonight!

Monday afternoon I left Florence on a train that took 4 hours to get to Rome. It was a long train ride, but I think that I much prefer travelling by train than by plane. On the train there is a lot to see, as the Italian country side zoomed by, and I could get up and move around as much as I wanted to avoid getting stiff legs, both things you simply cannot do on an airplane. But the long ride was much appreciated as I really needed some down time after the whirlwind weekend that I spent travelling around Italy; the four hours of rest were very nice. I wrote for my blogged and reminded myself how close I was to seeing Alana! When the train arrived in Rome, we trekked down to our hostel which was about ten blocks from the train station, and I immediately commented on how much more like Paris Rome is than the other cities we visited… but more on this later.

We made it to the hostel and checked in with Alex, who was the young man at the desk, who I would later realize, probably never slept! But as soon as we dropped our stuff in the hostel (which also turned out to be a very interesting place, but more on that later as well) we set off to find Alana at the Trevi Fountain! However, Rome does not have the public transportation systems that Paris does, so we set off on foot to find the Trevi Fountain. The transportation system in Rome is different for one main reason… every time they try to dig a tunnel to add to the metro, they run into something! They are constantly running into Roman ruins… and then they just can’t build it! So needless to say we got lost… stumbling around Rome dying to see Alana, and really wishing for an easy metro like there is in Paris… But we found it, and found Alana through the crowds of people who are always there! It was crazy, but nothing could have made me happier than to be reunited with my lovely Alana! So we then went over to the Pantheon and made our way over to Piazza Navona for dinner, where we had a lovely Italian dinner with pasta and wine and bruschetta and dessert.

By that point it was only around 9pm, so we decided to head out on a little walk to find Saint Peters… So we trekked over to the Vatican, across the city at night to see St. Peter’s by moonlight… ok so just at night because it was kind of raining (and yes for all those who might be interested the POS green umbrella did come out for a bit to protect us from the drizzle, or really to protect our cameras. I really love walking and seeing cities on foot… by day and by night, and surprisingly Rome is not all that large, since we walked all over in just about an hour… but by that point Alana was very tired since she had been at school all day so we walked her to her tram and bid her goodnight… then Matt and I went and sat in a little café to escape the rain, have a glass of wine, and plan our tour for the next day (Tuesday) which we decided should be a tour of ancient Rome… minus the Roman Forum and the Coloseum because we knew we were going to go see those things with Alana on Thursday and Friday. And then we set out back to the hostel on foot, since we had yet to figure out the bus system in Rome…

We arrived back at our hostel, dead on our feet, greeted by Alex the door guy… and I went to climb in my bunk bed… only to find that there was a man in the bed that I had picked out… apparently he had fallen out of his top bunk twice and asked to be moved to a bottom bunk. But it def scared the crap out of me! I feel like now is as good a time as any to talk a little bit about our hostel experience in Rome… because I feel like it was a pretty classic one, even if we didn’t spend a ton of time there, we still spent enough time there to meet some crazy/funny/interesting people from all over the world. We met Scottish Mike who was in Rome to teach English for three months and a girl whose name I don’t remember who was Argentinean and Italian and she was going back and forth between the UK and Italy trying to get here Italian citizenship so she could have a European passport. Then there was the Hungarian guys who showed up on Thursday night and through a party at the hostel, and the French teacher on holiday, and the Japanese guy who was in Italy with his handy copy of the book The Game which supposedly teaches you how to pick up girls… There was also the random guy who played his guitar every morning at 8am (not my favourite guy) and best of all there was the Italian guy (the one in my bed, who kept falling out of his) who was probably 45 and staying in a youth hostel (we never exactly figured out what he was doing there or why…) but he was hilarious. So for 8 euro a night during the week and 10 Euro a night on the weekend, we got to meet all of these interesting people… and speak English since that was the language which everyone had in common, and really just have an awesome experience. We only had one little bed bug scare, but so far (and it’s been three weeks) both Matt and I are bed bug free! It was definitely a good if not random experience and I would recommend the Mona Lisa youth hostel to anyone!

So now, the next morning Matt and I set out on our Roman tour of the city. We started with some roman baths which have now been converted into a church… made our way over to the Colloseum where we did not go in, but simply look from the outside and admired the arch of Constantine as well. At this point we were harassed almost to death by people trying to get English speaking tourists to go on some sort of a tour another, which was very annoying! We took to refusing them in French so they would leave us alone… (all of these things are what is pictured through out this post) and then we went to see the Trevi Fountain by day, and the Pantheon. Then we met Alana for lunch… where we had gelato and looked at some ruins… then Alana was back to class, and we were back to our Roman tour! We walked along the river down to see a ruin of a theatre, and then we just decided to walk to the other side of the city, along the river. It was a good long walk, that is for sure, but it was warm and sunny at that point, and we loved every minute of it. From there we went over to see the Spanish steps, which were not in keeping with our Roman tour, but that is ok, and we had a bit of a rest and a glass of wine. Drinking wine in a café makes me feel very grown up! We then trekked back over to the Piazza Novona to find Alana and to go to her apartment
to make dinner and meet her roommates! They are interesting, and we stayed there for a little while, went out for dessert and then Matt and I made our way back to the hostel because after hours and hours of walking, I actually thought my legs might fall off…

But we woke up refreshed and ready to go on Wednesday! We actually slept
in a little, and had another lovely walk through this garden in the northern part of the city… it was nice and cool and very enjoyable, and there were lots of funny people on these weird bike things. It was nice to walk and just enjoy the sun. I really wanted a big cup of coffee at that point too,
but sadly the Italians drink even stronger and smaller cups of espresso than the French do, so we stopped and had a quick lunch and I had a shot of espresso to revive myself… and then, we were off to the Vatican!


I had mixed feelings about going to Vatican City to see the Vatican museum. There are priceless treasures there, that really cannot be missed on a trip to Rome, but at the same time I have so many problems with the Catholic church, and their politics, and the ridiculous amount of wealth they posses and don’t share, and the you see the ads on TV for people to send money to the nuns who are old and sick and have no money, but there is the church with all that money, and they can’t help the nuns? (that is a shout out to you mom, but I cant help but agree.) I saw a lot of wonderful things, including the Sistine Chapel painted my Michael Angelo himself, and lots of paintings in the papal quarters and the “Modern Religious Art” Collection that included paintings by Mac’s favourites, Otto Dix and Max Ernst, and I have every intention of asking him about that when I talk to him again. What? I was really confused by the modern art collection that is for sure. I am not sure I saw the religious themes in the works… and in all of their collection of modern art, with lots of big names, they did not have a Picasso, which strangely made me kind of happy, I don’t know why. We spent a long time in the museum and then went over and went inside St. Peter’s Basilica before it closed. It was magnificent, and they were having mass which was really cool… but then we went back outside to find that it was raining, and it had gotten dark as it has a tendency to do. So we found a café and had some hot chocolate, and wrote post cards to our friends and family at home.


But by this point we were hungry, and we were supposed to meet up with Christine DiGangi because it was almost her birthday, but we needed to find an internet café to check facebook to find her… and don’t ask for an internet café in Rome, ask for an internet point, because they look at you and are really confused about how coffee and internet are related to each other, just fyi if you are ever in Rome in the rain looking for an internet point keep that in mind. But this was really when the sad pathetic and POS umbrella sort of came in handy again. It came in handy I guess, but the fact that it kept turning inside out about every 10 steps really meant that it was not keeping us all that dry in the rain… and we were cold and hungry and we walked all the way back across the city in the rain under the POS umbrella… I only wish we had a picture so that we could have seen how absurd and rather pathetic we looked that night.

We finally found an internet point, but it was too late to meet up with Christine, so we had a very late dinner, and went back to the hostel, to drop into our beds once again…but when we got back to the hostel all the lights were on, and people were up talking!
That was when we really got to me meet the people I described before, and it made me I that we were where we were, and that we were doing what we were doing… I have always thought about the days when I would be in college travelling around Europe… and here I am doing it! Those were two very busy days, and there was a lot more to come in the following days, but you will have to read about that in the next post that will cover Thursday and Friday’s adventures! I hope you enjoy the pics and some of my reflections here… there are definitely more reflections to come!

Un monde enchevêtré

So on Monday night it seemed like I came to the realization that my time in Pairs is sadly not unlimited, and that the list of things I want to do is not going to get any shorter, and I need to get my act together, and start going and doing some of the things I want to do! Well I at least need to make a list and start figuring out when everything was going to happen… just roughly. Sadly I also had to pick some things that simply aren’t going to be able to happen while I am here during this sojourn in Europe. So I now have three trips planned, one to Normandy next weekend, one to Berlin the first weekend of April, and one to Champagne for the weekend the second weekend in April. I was hoping to make it up to Amsterdam again while I was here, but I just don’t think that is going to happen sadly. I have been there before though, and so I decided to prioritize traveling in France and go see Champagne instead of Amsterdam, and the trip will be a little cheaper too. At the end of my time here I am going on a trip to the south of Europe, with stops in Lisbon, Madrid and Barcelona, and then making my way back up to Paris from the south, and hopefully making stops in Lyon and Marseille and then heading off to Iceland. So I am doing a pretty good amount of traveling. I am also going to London the first weekend in May while my mom and grandma are here so that will be a fun trip too. Lots to do in Europe, but even more to do in Paris… and only so many weeks left to do them! I have people coming to visit, Alana in 11 days, and Annie will be here the third weekend in April, and Matt’s parents will be here too, so those weekends will be fun too, and I will see lots of things in Paris (ie the Eifel tower, the Louvre, Musee d’Orsay) when they are here, and many other things too… but this weekend I wanted to see a museum that was fun so I chose the Musee de Quai Branly.

Matt and I went on Saturday afternoon to see the museum. It used to be the museum of primitive art (so problematic!) but during his time in office it was Jacques Chirac’s project to redo the museum. All of the presidents of the 5th republic have had some sort of a project like this one… Mitterand’s was the pyramid at the Louvre, Georges Pompidou was the Centre Pompidou etc. So Jacques Chirac did this museum… which is now a museum of art from the different continents, the America’s, Asia, Africa and Oceania. It has a cool building designed by the architect Jean Nouvel (who also designed the Institut du Monde Arabe!) and is very close to the Eifel Tower. They have an exhibit there now that we both wanted to see, which was called “Sexe, Mort et Sacrifice” (Sex, Death and Sacrifice) which is a display of artifacts and art pieces from the Mochia society which existed in modern day northern Peru between the 1st and 8th centuries C.E. So we wanted to see that juicy exhibit, but I was also very interested to see this museum that has objects from all over the world. I will explain about the museum and what I thought, and the questions I have, but first I must go on a little tangent about why I love France…

Why do I love France? Because France loves its young people, its students, but not just students, young people in general. So in all museums in Europe you can get in for free or for a reduced fee if you are between the ages of 18-26, and a European citizen. Why? I think because they just know that people between those ages are broke, but still like to go to museums and exhibits and stuff so they let them in for free. And cause people that age are generally students as well… but anyway. Perhaps you remember how frustrated I was in Florence when they had no international student discounts, and how I had to pay 6.50 € every other minute to get into a museum because I didn’t have a European passport? Well they were really bitchy about it in Italy, and no one without at passport could get the reduced tariff, and no one ever is getting in for free. But it is quite the opposite in Paris. At the Musee de Quai Branly, they have machines to sell student tickets (well sell is not right cause they are FREE) and the tickets work for the special exhibits and everything! So we got some free tickets, and all we had to do was show our student ID’s from IFE (which are hardly French identity cards) and they didn’t look twice. It was free for us to go. Sometimes they ask “How old are you, where do you live?” But if you say, 21 and Paris, they don’t think twice. They don’t ask for ID cards at all, and you are into the museum completely free! I really like this (mostly cause it benefits me) but also because I think it shows how much France values its young people, but it also shows how rich the French gov’t (or how strong the image the government has of being rich) is since they fund the museums, and they don’t really care if you pay or not. That is perhaps the difference between France and Italy… the Italian government doesn’t have the money or the stability the French one does, and if they want to keep their museums up to par then you HAVE to pay. But regardless of that, I love France because I get to do all kinds of cool stuff for free. That is the Moberg in me… and also the college student I think.

Ok, so after that little tangent, back to the museum. We went first to the special exhibit… which I am not going to lie was really strange because these people were really into human sacrifice and kinky sex stuff, and it was just kind of strange… interesting but strange. I am not going to post any pics of the stuff we saw cause well, they are explicit, and I want to keep this blog PG for the kids out there… but it was really strange. But we went to the general collection as well, and now I am going to nerd out, and write about all the thoughts and stuff I had during my visit to the general collection.

Ok so, maybe everyone reading this doesn’t know this about me, but I am really interested in going into museum work. I am a Conflict Studies major which is an interdisciplinary program at DePauw, and I am focusing in Anthropology, Art History and Political Science. I am particularly interested in the politics of post-colonial representation, of how the west represents the ‘other’ in institutional spaces in the 21st century… that is the shortest explanation of what I am trying to do with my life possible here, but that is just a little background on why I found this museum to be so interesting, and why I am asking some of the questions I am asking… not at all expecting to find answers, just musing and wondering.

So this museum is full of objects which have come from all over the world, from the four corners of the earth, as I mentioned before. There are four sections, Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas, and the objects are organized geographically by region, and then within the regions as well. So that is how they are organized, but what I was really interested in (perhaps more than even the objects themselves) was how they are presented. It is the philosophy of the museum, or at least the philosophy they have adopted for presenting the objects, that things on display are art objects… Art with a capital A. They are presented like paintings, or sculpture in any other museum you would visit, with wall text that says where they are from and when, generally from which people or tribe they originate from, but that is it. In a way I think that this type of presentation is a way of trying to honor the objects, to present them as western art, since the museum wants them to be accepted and respected, and viewed through a lens which suggests that these objects are art objects like a painting by Monet, or something comparable. So in that respect I think that the museum has done the objects and honor, and attempts to display these once ‘primitive’ art objects on the same plane as western art objects to communicate just that- that they are equal to western Art objects. So good for you Musee de Quai Branly.

But on the other hand, and not to be overly critical, but just to ask the question… are these objects strictly art objects as they are being presented? Not exactly. A lot of the objects on display were taken from these parts of the world during the colonial period because they were considered to be oddities, or something like that, and then when their collectors died, they came into the possession of the state. But the cultures they came from were not then respected or thought about, the objects were simply stolen for the pleasure of the west… but these objects had very different social lives before they were taken… they were used for religious ceremonies, or in people’s homes or to commemorate the dead. They had many different uses and purposes… and while they are often beautifully sculpted and adorned… they were not Art objects in the way that westerners think of Art objects. And so does it do them justice to present them as such a couple hundred years later in Paris France? Is it really an accurate representation of the object? Or the culture, or the person who made the object? Is it acceptable to take out all anthropological aspects of an object… to not tell people what it was used for and what culture it comes from… I know that the museum is an art museum, but the objects they have on display are not all specifically Art objects… so are they doing them justice? Are they in fact telling a non-truth, lying by omission? Am I way over thinking this? I don’t know. I am sure that the museum went to great lengths to decide how exactly they were going to do these things… to show their permanent collections as art. They are in fact an art museum, not a natural history museum… but does that work?

I was walking around there asking Matt these thousands of questions (he is very patient with my inquiries sometimes) and I realized that I was much more interested in how the objects were being displayed than in the objects themselves. I then tried to take a step back, to take in what I was seeing and where I was, and to ask the questions later… but I still have these questions, and I think I am going to write to Professor Hollowell to ask her what she thinks. But seeing that museum and asking these questions definitely makes me want to explore these questions more, and it reaffirms for me that I am going in the right direction for my life.

This has turned out to be a random post, but there is more to come I am sure, and I love being here, and being able to go to these museums, and ask these questions, begin to struggle through some of this stuff here and now… because the questions aren’t going away, and I want to find the answers… or at least solutions.

A Thursday Afternoon

So , the Rome posts that I keep promising to write on their way, I promise, so look forward to three entries full of roman adventures, silly pics of Alana and me, continuing tales of the POS green umbrella and lots of gelato and some pigeon pictures too… but the first of those will come tonight when I am at my computer that has the pics on it. Right now I have a little bit of down time at work so I thought I would write a little update about how my second week of my internship is going, and some plans I have made for the upcoming weeks etc.

So it is Thursday afternoon, and I am almost through the second week of my internship at the IMA. This week I have worked a lot on my independently assigned and conducted research project having to do with Saladin… and there was an article in the periodical I was reading by Carole Hillenbrand who we read during my class with Anne, which I thought was pretty cool. I am not sure what I want to do with all of my new found information about Saladin… but I might use it for my memoir du stage depending on what sort of a topic I decide to pursue. Saladin represents a really interesting character in the Arab world and the three main films that were created about him and the third crusade and Richard the Lion Hearted provide a very interesting look at how the east and the west represent each other to each other, and it would be interesting perhaps to see how those representations have changed… if they have. But I have my first meeting with my tutor this weekend about my memoir, his name is Steve, but don’t say anything to him about it because he is a little sensitive about not having a very French name… seriously. But he and I will hopefully have a good conversation which can point me in the right direction, and maybe help me to direct my ideas and my self-assigned research project a little bit more.

But in other news, this week at the IMA has been a success so far. On Tuesday, rather out of the blue, Mme Findakly looks at me and says, “I am glad you are here. Let’s get you a computer.” It has actually been rather frustrating not having a computer since I could do things a lot easier with one… but I hadn’t said anything… but on Wednesday morning a computer appeared on my desk, and by the afternoon it was up and running, connected to the printer and everything… And I had been assigned a new project and I was on my way. Yesterday was the first day that it was 5:30 (time for me to leave) and I just wasn’t ready to leave… which I felt like was a grand success! And to celebrate the successes of the week, Matt and I went and checked out a little hole in the wall bar that Johnny Depp is known to frequent on occasion… but sadly we did not see him.

Then I arrived at work this morning to finish my project, and to begin working with a woman named Eva on my next project… which is preparing for the stages intensifs (the week long Arabic classes one of which I will be taking! If 30 hours of Arabic in one week doesn’t kill me… nothing can) which is a rather large on going project. Then we finished for a lunch break, and Mme Findakly invited me to go to the market with her, and to pick up some lunch… which might not seem like much, but she and I are making excellent strides in our relationship! I am sure after today that she likes me, and is genuinely glad that I am here, to help and to learn, which makes me very happy. She showed me the market that is here on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and she showed me all of her favourite organic shops. She also invited me over to dinner at her house to meet her family sometime (which is a big step) since she has a daughter who is my age and a son who is 26. I look forward to meeting her family whenever she officially invites me over… anyway after our adventure today and her invitation, I have decided that she likes me, and that she thinks things are going well! Which is good for everyone involved…

I can’t believe how right on track Thomas was about how things would go… The first day slow, the first week kind of awkward, and by the end of the second week things would pick up and be just fine. Which is exactly where I am now, thankfully! I know some other kids in my program whose internships aren’t going quite as expected, so I feel really lucky to have found this one! Tomorrow I am working all day with Mme Chouick… which will be interesting as well, even though I have no idea what we are doing…on verra!

I will tell you all one more little anecdote/interesting thing that I have encountered in my time here at the IMA… and that is what happens when I introduce myself to people, and tell them my name. The first thing people will say is, “ça c’est de quelle origine?” (Where does that come from?) Which seems to me to be a more PC way of saying, Where are you from? Rather than asking the ever loaded question, “D’ou venez vous?” But what I think is funny is that I can always tell the difference between a person whose first language was French and a person whose first language was Arabic because those who spoke Arabic first have no trouble with the aspirated ‘H’ and those who spoke French first, invariably pronounce it ‘allie because they just don’t have the aspirated ‘H’ sound down… so funny! I also have been asked a few times why I have a boy’s name… because Ali is a very common arab name… for men. And if you hear ‘allie from a French person with out the aspirated ‘H’ of course it is going to sound like Ali… and that just cracks me up! Then always follows… ça c’est de quelle origine?

So anyway, that is all I have for this Thursday afternoon… things are going well, and in a couple hours when I go home you can look forward to the at least the first Rome entry…

A toute!

Fun things last week!

So in addition to returning to Paris on Sunday and starting my internship on Monday, I also did many other fun things last week and over the weekend including going go the friendly, pre world cup match between France and Spain, going to the Salon Agriculture on Friday night, and then this weekend Christine was visiting from Rome and Ashley Oliver was visiting from London, and I had quite a fun weekend with them. I also started my last class with IFE which meets on Tuesday nights for two hours, and I will talk about all that stuff now.

I will start with my class, and get to the more fun things… so my first class was on Tuesday night, and it was a regular first day of class, learning names and signing up for dates for homework assignments and things like that, which was thrilling… but I am actually really excited for this class because it is going to be about the history of the European Union, how it developed after the end of WWII and how it got to be what it is today. We are also going to talk about the challenges that the EU faces… question like what constitutes Europe. Where does the eastern border fall? Who can use the Euro? And the ever pressing question What about Turkey? There is also the current question of the financial crisis in Greece and what the European Union can/should do to help them? All of these are big questions facing the Union immediately, but there are also questions about its true nature as a democratic institution since it often overrides or ignores the referendum results of each individual country when the people of the country vote against something the EU wants to see happen… another big question. So yeah, it is all going to be very interesting, and I think it will be a good way to help open up my understanding of European politics from a French perspective. The second one is tonight, so I will let you know how it goes.

So that was Tuesday night of last week, and on Wednesday night I went to the pre-world cup soccer game between France and Spain. If anyone follows soccer then they will know that the USA played the Netherlands that same night, and sadly the lost 2-1, but the Netherlands is ranked 2nd in the world so that is not so bad. But anyway, back to the game between France and Spain. I hurried home from work to change my clothes and make some dinner before heading out to the game which started at 9pm, or 21h00 if you prefer (military time is still confusing to me… 16h00 should be 6pm. Seriously.) So I took the RER D up to the stade de France, and then walked up to the stadium… I was really worried about how I would find the stadium after I got off the metro, but that was really actually a stupid worry cause there were hordes and hordes of people all walking the same way to get to the game. So we finally made it to the stadium and found our section, only to realize that there was a huge line to get into the section! We had tickets already, so all we could do was wait in line… and I was so worried we were going to miss kick off! The line crawled as time went by and were almost to the front as they started playing the Spanish National Anthem, and we were sprinting up the stairs as they played the Marseillais… and we sat down just in time for kick off! It was a huge adrenaline rush just to kick off the game! They open the gates to the game two hours before kickoff… and now I know why.

So if anyone knows anything about soccer right now, then you know that the Spanish team is ranked #1 in the world going into the World cup… and everyone pretty much knew that the Spanish were going to be better than the French, and it was really just a friendly… and the Spanish were friendly, but they kicked France’s butt. In fact it kind of looked like the French team didn’t even know how to play soccer compared to the Spanish… people were expecting the Spanish to be good, But no one was really expecting the French to be so bad, which does not bode well for the World Cup which starts in less than 100 days. Personally, I don’t care if the French are terrible at soccer, I just wanted to go and see the game, two of the biggest teams in the world go head to head… and I sadly can’t go to the world cup in South Africa this summer, so this is as close as I am going to get to seeing a real match. However what was really interesting to me was first how the French fans reacted to their team doing horribly, and secondly how different the ambiance was at the game compared to sporting events I have gone to in the states.

First, the French fans. They were merciless! Every time the French team messed up they groaned, and at halftime when the score was already 2-0 they booed the team off the field. Then when they came back after halftime they booed them back on to the field. I couldn’t believe it! In the states I feel like your team can be the worst team in the entire country, and you still cheer for them no matter what, come a good season or bad season, come rain or shine. But not the French it appears… they might have been a bit more supportive if the game had been more than just a friendly match, but I don’t know. Then when things got really bad, when the Spanish were simply passing around the French as though they were playing a high school soccer team, the French started cheering for the Spanish! I was dumbfounded! Every time they hit another pass, in a series of like 30-‘à passes the French fans would shout olé ! Which is how the Spanish cheers for their team… and finally when the game was over, final score of 2-0 the French booed their team right off the field again. I almost felt sorry for the French team, but not really cause they really played terribly.

Secondly, it was so interesting to notice the difference between the soccer game here in Paris and any other sporting event I have gone to in the States. I haven’t been to a ton of games and things, but I have been to a few MLS (major league soccer) games in the states and some baseball games. In the states I feel like half the reason people go to the game is to eat and drink, and be in the atmosphere of the game… you know « buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks ! » Not here in France. It is all about the game. Hardcore. Some people went and bought something to drink at halftime, but no one took their eyes off of the game for a minute… It was just so interesting to see the different approach to the game. We all know that Europeans take their soccer seriously, but they really do. I also wonder if the World Cup games and friendlies and things like that are an outlet for European nationalism, that really only gets to come out once every four years. The entire continent is very conscious of not being overly nationalistic, or trying to prove that one country is better than the other, since in the past sentiments like that have led to little things like world wars. And particularly with the European Union, equality between states is stressed and each state is considered equal. It is nothing like in the states where people have no problem saying that the USA is the best country in the world… but for example in France the flag only waves on state buildings and it is always right next to the EU flag. And often overzealous representation of the flag is associated with the really far right wing conservative party the Front National, so you just don’t see it that often. However, at the game, the audience was a sea of French flags, and tri color wigs and things of the sort. I just wonder if occasions like this, once every four years allow European countries to have a safe venue to express their nationalistic impulses… it would be interesting to know.

Then when the game was over, I was sure it was going to take forever to get back to the city since there were 80,000 people at the game, but the beauty of the RER is that a ton of people can ride at once, and we were all back in the city in no time ! For some reason I thought that I couldn’t take my camera, which was dumb… but I pulled these pics of the internet, so they are way better than ones I could have taken anyway.

Then on Friday a few of us from IFE went over to the Salon d’Agriculture near Porte de Versailles on Friday night after work to see what all the hustle and bustle was about! I told the story on this blog earlier about how Jacques Chirac would go and spend hours at the Salon d’Agriculture, so I just had to go and check it out. It was outstanding… like the county fair times a million! Farmers come from all over the country to show off their goods, their animals, their techniques, and best of all their food and wine products… if you had tried hard enough you could have made a free dinner out of all of the free samples that were being passed out of cheese and saucisson sec and bread and oil and jam and honey and olives and wine… so outstanding! We walked around to all of the regions of France upstairs and then went down stairs to find the overseas departments of France… which were absolutely crazy, because that was where all the rum was! It was really a great way to spend a night, and have a cultural experience since I won’t be able to go to all of the regions of France while I am here; I still got to taste and see something from almost everywhere.

So then on Saturday I spent the day tromping around the city with Christine and Ashley and Matt which was really fun… and we had a fun family dinner and went and saw the Eifel tower glitter at night…it was a great end to a fun day, and a fun weekend. On Sunday I went to Pere Lachaise and met up with Emily Vernon who was visiting… and I saw good old Jim Morrison from the Doors who is buried there, and Oscar Wilde and Max Ernst (for Mac) and Moliere and a few others… but I didn’t have my camera, so when I go back in a few weeks I will take pics and put them up here. Then Ashley came home and stayed the night with me and we had a lovely little sleep over… it was a great weekend!

So as usual there are a million other details I could include, but I will write about the fun things of this week this weekend, and in the next few days you can still fully expect to read three entries about Rome… they are coming, along with pics of the world’s most delicious Gelato that Anne sent us to find…

Bisous!

My first week

So I have now completed my first week of my internship at L’institut du monde arabe, and I will recount many of the happenings, and my feelings and interesting experiences I had in my first week, and what I am looking forward to in the next 11 weeks to come.


So I arrived at my internship last week, about thirty minutes early, dressed in my finest business looking attire, and I waited in the lobby of the first floor trying to figure out what to do… looking sad and lost and confused I am sure. I wasn’t sure if Mme Finakly was going to come down and find me, or if I should go upstairs I just didn’t know. Finally the security guard who is very friendly asked me what on earth I was doing… and I told him. He sent me up to get a visitor’s badge and then up to the 8th floor which is home to the Centre pour langue et civilization, which is where I am working. I met Mme Findalky in her office and we set out getting administrative stuff out of the way… I have my own badge and I have my own key and everything… very official. Then, when all of that was settled, there came the question of… What to do? Mme Findakly was very busy getting things in order for the visit from the Iraqi ambassador (March 25 so look for an entry about it !) and I sat at my desk making lists… of everything I could think of to make a list of.

As lunch approached I was getting kind of nervous, was I going to have to eat alone on my first day? But around noon, another intern who is franco-american came down to Mme Findakly’s office and asked me to go to lunch! I was ecstatic, absolutely thrilled! Her name is Audrey, and her mother is American and she lived in the states for seven years and when to college there. She is working here for 9 months before starting a master’s program at Science Po. She is very nice, and it is very obvious to me that she has some American culture in her… because she behaves a lot like an American a lot of the time… she is very open and welcoming, where French people are often more reserved, and it could take up to two months to begin to break through some harder exteriors to begin to make friends. I can also always hear her coming down the hall, walking quickly like a New Yorker, and making a little more noise than anyone else… she is lovely. She is very interesting and enthusiastic, and she was nothing but friendly to me all week long, and I am so grateful to her for inviting me out to lunch every day, and introducing me to everyone, and giving me the lay of the land… So Audrey has really been great!

The rest of my first day continued to be slow… in the afternoon Mme Findakly and I developed a program for me for these next twelve weeks… but that didn’t take too long… and I went home, trying not to worry that I was going to be bored out of my mind for the next twelve weeks… The rest of the week was also kind of slow… I did a few translations which I really enjoyed doing, and I really like the puzzle of trying to find the right word, and capture the meaning of the sentence. It is also really good for my French since I have been looking up words I don’t know in a French dictionary, I often find myself reading entire pages of the dictionary… strange as that may be. I also helped with some other small things, and I started a research project that I am not exactly sure what I am going to do with just yet. I am reading through all of the magazines that the IMA has put out in the last ten years, and trying to find themes, or figure things out that could possibly turn into a memoire du stage or something. Ifound one that has an entire section on Saladin, and I have been slowly reading that section, learning each word to understand it all, since I have an idea of how I could work him and his re-emergence in the 20th century into a research paper about how the east and the west represent themselves and the other. We shall just have to see…

Tuesday was the first day of my new class with IFE, which I have once a week on Tuesday nights… but I will write about it in the next entry about the fun things I did last week outside of my internship. Wednesday went much about the same as Tuesday, but I went to a really yummy Japanese restaurant for lunch with Audrey and another woman named Aisha, and it was thoroughly enjoyable.

Thursday I got to work and Madame Findakly told me something was going on upstairs, but I wasn’t exactly sure what until Audrey texted me to come upstairs and check it out. It turned out to be a two day long conference about Jerusalem and its people and the challenges it is currently facing. Madame Findakly said I could go up and listed for the afternoon so I did. It was nice to have a break from my research project that doesn’t have a goal yet… and it was just really interesting in general. First of all I am grateful for a program like IFE that helped me find an internship at a place like the IMA because I am going to have opportunities like this one for the next 12 weeks. I got to listen to some of the leading scholars talk about what is going on in Israel… and it was simply because I was there, in the place trying to be open to learning as much as I can, and that really is what I am there to do. One of the talks I listed to was in English, and one was in French. But what was really interesting was that one of the talks was given completely from the Palestinian point of view. I feel like in the states it is often hard to hear this point of view, even though more recently people have become more critical of Israeli politics, it was still fascinating (and disturbing) to hear an Arab/ Palestinian perspective on the entire thing. I feel like this is why I am here, what I want to learn about, the other perspective. I want to have my mind opened and to try and learn as much as I can about everything. I was thrilled to have this opportunity for and afternoon, and I can only imagine how many more like it will come up in the next 11 weeks. Starting in 2 weeks there is a new exhibit coming in place of Arts of Islam, and I translated the brochure for it into English. It is going to be so cool, and hopefully I will get to meet the artist who sounds awesome.


Also speaking of things that I am going to be learning… it is official I am going to learn some Arabic while I am at the institute. I am going to take a 30 hour intensive course (that is 6 hours a day for 5 days) in April, after I help to organize everything. I am looking forward to it, and I am nervous about it since it will be intense, but this is what I am here to do! I can’t wait to learn it, and maybe take some when I get back to DPU in the fall as well.

The other thing I did this week was to make up some ideas for a memoire du stage… and I am going to post them here, just to see what anyone thinks… maybe just two of them and they are sort just musings and ideas, and some of them relate to some of the issues I talked about in the last post, so I would love to hear what anyone thinks. Also, the pics posted here are of the IMA and of the views I have on the bus on the way to work. I will stick the website up too if anyone wants to check out what it is all about, I think it can be translated into English… if not I will work on it!
http://www.imarabe.org/

Memoir du stage Ideas:
1) In the debate over the “French national identity” which revolves around issues that have come up since the end of colonialism, particularly after WWII when lots of north African (arab) immigrants began to come to france… but their culture was very different. Now today second and third generation French citizens (the children and grand children of these immigrants) continue to struggle with this cultural clash, personally and on a political level as well. Debates in France rage over things like headscarves, le voile integral, laicite and identity in general… all these debates seem to revolve around cultural differences which have entered into the political sector. What role can/should a cultural institution like the IMA play in finding solutions to these socio-political struggles which many Franco-arab citizens face in France and all over the world?

This is kind of rough… and I get to meet with my prof/tutor this week to talk it out so I will keep you all updated as the ideas evolve, progress and begin to take more solid shape.

Bisous!